The general outlines of Harvard's portfolio are set by the treasurer, who receives the advice of the Overseers Financial Policy Committee. That committee looks over all areas of University funding, like budgets, tuition and endowments. It performs the basic functions of all overseers--overseeing the running of the University, advising and discussing, but it has little real power own.

Since Bok took office the Corporation, and the Office of the Treasurer, have had fewer day-to-day financial affairs to handle. When Bok became president, the University had one vice-president, no significant presidential staff, and a treasurer working part-time on running Harvard's investments. In addition to setting up the Harvard Management Company, Bok brought in four new vice presidents, including Hale Champion, to handle financial affairs. Bok also brought in Daniel Steiner '54 to be general counsel to the University. Last year the University showed a small but welcome budget surplus, and according to Putnam the Harvard portfolio is one of the most well-managed and carefully-watched of al university portfolios. The current annual rate of return on the market value of Harvard's endowment is 5.2 per cent, which may not outrun inflation, but is still considered respectable in institutional circles.

Harvard's investment policies are profitable, but are they ethical? Therein lies the rub, or at least therein lies much of the agitation over the portfolio in recent years. While Bennett was treasurer he personally made the shareholder decisions until Bok decided in October 1972 that a Corporation subcommittee should make the decisions. Bennett seemed to think there were no ethical issues involved in stock decisions, because he never supported an anti-management statements in the trash as soon as he got them. When non-financial shareholder resolutions became more prevalent in the early '70s, Bennett's conservatism began to become a problem.

In 1972 Harvard owned about $20 million of stock in Gulf Oil, a company that was helping the Portuguese colonial regime in Angola beat back the growing threat of the black guerilla movement. After eight months of ineffectual protests and calls for Harvard's divestiture of stock in the company, a small group of black students occupied Mass Hall, supporters demonstrated for several days in the Yard and students called a general University strike. The Corporation refused to give in to the pressure, and the Mass Hall occupiers left peacefully after six days. After the sit-in, Bok sent one of his assistants, Stephen B. Farber '63, to Angola to investigate the situation first-hand. Today Harvard still owns stock in Gulf Oil, but market forces and minor sales of some shares put the present value at $8.5 million.

In the wake of the 1972 uprising, President Bok decided to establish the ACSR as a five student, five faculty member, five alumni body to consider the ethical questions inherent in investment decisions, and advise the Corporation on how to vote its shareholder proxies. The Associated Alumni were to choose the alumni members, the deans of the various schools were to suggest professors to serve on the ACSR, and the dean of the College was to choose the undergraduate students from a list drawn up by a group of undergraduates from all the Houses. South House refused to send delegates to the inter-House group unless the University students granted the right to decide on their own representatives, but the group met anyway and selected two undergraduate nominees. The three other students came from other parts of the University.

Other the years the ACSR has evolved, becoming a four faculty member, four alumni and four student body, with the one undergraduate member elected by the body of student representatives from the Houses and the freshman class. The body of student representatives has at times refused to disband upon choosing its nominee to the ACSR, as it did in 1972, when it demanded that the undergraduate representative's votes on issues be bound by its decisions. This year the group again did the same thing, institutionalizing itself by getting the approval of CHUL to become the Undergraduate Committee on Harvard Shareholder Responsibility.

The ACSR has met since October to formulate a South African investment policy. Along the way, the ACSR has relied greatly on the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC)--a Washington-based service set up in 1972 by Harvard and other large institutions and first chaired by Farber.

In what seems to be a strange parallel to the 1972 events, this year's demonstrations and interest in South Africa prompted Bok to send one of his current assistants to investigate South Africa firsthand. Lawrence F. Stevens '65, secretary of the ACSR, traveled for three weeks n South Africa and will report his findings to the Corporation's investment subcommittee, which was set up simultaneously with the ACSR and which makes final investment decisions with the advice of the ACSR. In 1972 students were calling for divestiture of stock in Gulf because it and other U.S. corporations were helping the white minority regime in Angola survive, and this year many student groups, including the Black Students Association, are calling for Harvard's divestiture of stock in U.S. firms that help uphold the white minority government in South Africa. In 1972, persuasion failed so students took over a building--that also failed to make Harvard divest. Today rumors abound of a possible sit-in if the also assistant to the Corporation's investment all U.S. firms from South Africa, although none of the groups in the United Front, a newly-formed coalition of seven campus anti-apartheid groups, of the Front itself, have announced plans for a sit-in, or even admit to forming contingency plans in case they are needed.

Each year the ACSR considers dozens of shareholder resolutions in most of the companies in the Harvard portfolio, but there are usually only a few major issues on the proxy agenda--this year the issues are South Africa, bottle feeding, and political contributions, last year they were the Arab boycott of Israel; and South Africa. On the purely financial resolutions the ACSR may defer to the Corporation subcommittee, but on almost all important shareholder issues the ACSR considers the matter and makes a recommendation to the Corporation. Unless the ACSR's vote is too close for the Corporation to draw "a clear mandate" from it, the subcommittee has tended not to disagree with the ACSR's recommendations. When the subcommittee does disagree with the ACSR, it is usually to change a vote for or against a resolution to an abstention, although occasionally the Corporation has changed a yes vote into a no vote. The most recent shareholder resolution of note was one to force Kodak to stop photographic equipment sales to South Africa, which both the ACSR and the Corporation passed. The resolution will probably fail at Kodak's annual meeting, however--no more than a small percentage of shareholder resolutions opposed by company management ever pass.

But much more than the shareholder resolutions, the ACSR report on South African investments has drawn the attention of the University community. In its report presented to the Corporation on March 20, the recommended a policy of non-investment in banks ending money to the South African government or its public corporations, the sale of the bonds Harvard now holds in those banks, and the establishment of a detailed procedure for monitoring U.S. firms' compliance with apartheid. After studying the firms the ACSR will reevaluate the entire situation next fall and will propose shareholder resolutions in those Companies that it believes offer more help to the apartheid government than o the black workers in South Africa, That is, if the Corporation approves the report. Neither the ACSR nor the Corporation has the personnel to conduct such an extensive study, but Corporation members extensive study, but Corporation members have suggested they may try to "beef up" the IRRC and ask it to do the analysis.

While most Corporation members decline to speculate on what position the Corporation will take on the issue, Putnam says he believes the Corporation will agree with the vast majority of the ACSR report and will "go farther on the banks." Although he is not a member of the four-man investment subcommittee, Bok has involved himself on the issue because the full Corporation makes all major policy decisions for the University. Bok, as president, is the most influential Corporation member, and because he has over the years acquired a reputation for being one of the more liberal members of the seven-man body, his involvement may spell a coming strong anti-apartheid stance by the Corporation. No one really knows, however.

Meanwhile, the United Front is sponsoring a march from Radcliffe to the Yard, and a general boycott of afternoon classes so all students can participate in a mass demonstration during today's Corporation meeting. What effect they will have remains to be seen--despite the chain of advising from the IRRC to the ACSR to the Corporate subcommittees, despite student protest and petitions, despite ACSR and Corporation open hearings, despite the southern Africa Solidarity Committee and the United Front, once again the actual decision comes down to the Harvard Corporation, as it always has, and probably always will. Legally, that is the Corporation's right. But the policeman will be back in front of 17 Quincy Street again, just in case someone wants to quarrel with the Corporation's decision.